The Powrakarmika Protest: A demand for minimum Wages, A demand for dignified living

Powrakarmikas (Sanitation Workers) perform the obligatory duties of the local bodies, keeping the cities and towns clean and safeguarding the health of every person. The workers are predominantly Dalit pre-ordained by the caste system to perform these jobs generationally, and structurally oppressed and deprived of social dignity, education, proper housing and the fundamental choice of opting for other occupations. 

Owing to the extremely low wages received by them, their social and economic conditions are extremely vulnerable. Despite the essential and life-saving work done by them, they do not have proper housing, are unable to provide proper education for their children, and are unable to access proper health services, forcing them to live in a vicious circle of poverty and social/economic disempowerment. They are forced to live in slums having minimal or no access to basic services such as toilets, water, roads and electricity. Their children are forced to drop out of school, due to their low wages and are thus pushed into this hereditary profession. Being largely women, they are subject to the triple oppression of caste, class and patriarchy. 

In Karnataka, a Jaatha was undertaken from 9 October 2021 demanding dignified working conditions, including the demand for increase in minimum wages. Minimum wages payable to powrakarmikas and other workers employed in solid waste management in Karnataka falls under the scheduled employment “Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs)”. The basic wages component in Minimum wages is mandated to be revised every 5 years. The failure to pay minimum wages amounts to workers working in conditions of forced labour prohibited under Article 23 of the Constitution. Similarly, the failure to revise minimum wages every 5 years amounts to workers being compelled to work in conditions of forced labour. The minimum wages was last revised for powrakarmikas on 05.08.2016, and was due on 05.08.2021.

Demanding that the minimum wages be increased to a minimum of Rs. 35,000/- and for dignified working conditions, the Jaatha that was launched on 9 October 2021 went around Bengaluru. On 15 December 2021, it culminated in a protest outside the Labour Department with over thousand powrakarmikas demanding that the wages be increased. 

Comrade Nirmala, the President of the BBMP Powrkarmikara Sangha spoke of how it was impossible to live with the wages that were being paid and that the historic injustice done to powrakarmikas must be set right. By refusing to pay workers proper wages and denying them permanent status, the Government is perpetuating the caste system. Our fight is for all our rightful dues – we will fight till the dream of Dr Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule and Bhagat Singh are fulfilled, she said. Revolutionary songs filled the air, as workers sang for equality and vowed to take their rights, that was being denied to them. 

The powrakarmikas put forth the demand that minimum wages must be increased to a minimum of Rs. 35,000/-, below which it would be impossible to sustain oneself in the city of Bengaluru, taking into account, food, clothing, rent, education, medical expenses. Today workers have to depend on the open market for essential commodities and, given the rapid shrinking of the welfare state from the spheres of health and education, the workers are at the mercy of private establishments for these basic services as well. The failure to increase minimum wages adequately would result in powrakarmikas and their families being deprived of nutritious food, proper housing and a dignified life and their children being deprived of education pushing them back into this caste ordained work.

The officials of the Labour Department assured the workers that the demands put forth by the Union would be placed before the Government. 

Powrakarmikas have vowed to take this struggle forward – for dignity and equality.